The Pondertorium

Pondertorium Redesign and Revisioning

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:45:02 +0000

Frens,

After almost a year in retirement it's time to bring back the Pondertorium. Enjoy!

Why I can't take religion seriously: Exhibit A

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:06:55 +0000

I'm not an atheist, and I don't have any problem with anyone believing whatever they want. However, It becomes very hard to take people seriously when they continuously produce things like this. Honestly, this is the biggest joke I've ever seen in my life. Just watch the video.

Original Link is at http://www.zoorace.com if you want to delve more into this wonderful dialog.

Yes... I know he won't win. Ron Paul and You.

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:40:51 +0000

Yes, I am a Ron Paul supporter. You may know of us by the loud cries of foul play that are yelled each time a poll is presented showing our candidate in the single digits. There seem to be two very opinionated camps when it comes to the issue of Ron Paul. There are those who say "I don't know what he stands for, but I know he won't win so I don't want to vote for him," and those who say (often in all caps and copious use of the exclamation point) "WE'RE GOING TO TAKE BACK THIS COUNTRY FOR FREEDOM AND BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH."

While I tend to agree on principle with the later of the two types of people, I am forced to part ways when it comes to their blind optimism. We're probably not going to take back this country (at least not this election cycle). In fact, chances are that a Democrat (most likely Obama or Clinton) is going to be our next president. Now, before you dismiss me as a defeatist consider that this loss (and Ron Paul's part in it) may be the best thing to every happen to the republican party, and may prevent it from going the way of the Wigs in the future.

I don't know if you've noticed something about the Republican party lately, but it doesn't really seem to have a clear message. One part of the party is about Loving God and Hating Gays (The party of Huckabee). This part wants less government involvement in our daily lives, unless it offends their moralities in which case they want those who offend god to be black bagged and sent off to Guantanamo. There is another part of the Republican party that seems so concerned with their own safety from the nasty terrorists that they're just about willing hand over any power necessary to anyone who will take it just to keep them safe (The Party of Guilanni). Finally there is the party of the Anti-dems. These people don't really stand on any solid ground politically, but know that they hate the liberals and want to make sure that they don't get in office. They tend to support the candidate that is most likely to win, regardless of what they actually stand for (The Party of Romney). This paints the picture of a very divided party (so much for Bush being a Uniter, his administration not only fractured the nation but even his own party).

In steps Ron Paul. This is a man who seems to inspire more animosity from his own party than he does from the opposing one. However, somewhere in his message is something that I truly believe every classic republican believes. "Our government needs to be spending less money," and "Our government needs to stay out of our lives." These are the principles of the Republican party that i signed up for, but don't seem to be the principles of the Republican Party today. This is why I support him, and also why he won't win.

The parties of the other candidates seem to be parties of issues. One party has an issue with Gays, the other with Terrorists, the other with Democrats. In each case they have ways to solve their problems: Some want to change the constitution, others want to fund large scale wars. When they see a problem they say "they should really something about that." What none of the parties seem to realize is that these issues cost money to solve. Ron Paul's campaign is so interesting because it has stepped up and said, "My only issue is that we're spending too much money trying to solve everyone else's issues." This doesn't bode well for him as a candidate, but may spark an idea in the heads of republican everywhere.

Say Ron Paul gets a solid 12% of the vote come primary time. That's 12% of voters who will not be satisfied with any other candidate but Ron Paul. They won't like the issues of the other candidate, and for the most part they won't vote in the general election. What this means is a loss for the Republicans. However, when a party loses the election they start to ask "why?" Soon that why will show that the Ron Paul voters didn't become Guilani or Huckabee or Romney voters. My hope is that this will lead to a reexamining of the republican platform, and hopefully return us back to where we were. That means lower Taxes, less spending, better privacy, and far less fear.

So perhaps a Ron Paul lose may be a win for the Ron Paul idea.

Rational Faith versus Blind Faith

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:18:06 +0000

I'm an avid Digg reader, and tend to waste large portions of my work days reading the comments of some of the more active Diggers. While quite a few topics get pretty heated, the ones that I find the most interesting are those related to the Creationism vs. Evolution debate, or more to the point the Atheists vs. Christians debate. What is so fascinating about this argument is that both sides seem to entirely miss the point of their respective camps. The Atheists are quite often abandoning reason in order to argue for the irrationality of the Christians. Meanwhile the Christians are abandoning 2000 years of Christian Philosophy in order to argue for what is merely a part of their overall religion. The reason I point to Digg here is that it seems to be a pretty good indicator of the direction of where the general population is taking this debate, and I think it's worthy of exploration.

Before I get into the argument I plan to make let me give any reader a bit of background of where I stand on this issue. First, I am an agnostic. I won't be the first to jump up and say "praise Jesus," but I also believe that outright denying the existence of a higher being is equally foolish to outright asserting it. This will become quite a bit more clear as my argument on this continues.

I think the best way to describe this is to bring to light that a person can in fact have different types of faith. The religion camp will say that they do not need hard evidence to prove the existence of god, because they have faith that it exists. The Atheist camp believes that nothing that cannot be proven (scientifically) should be held as true, and therefore having faith is foolish. This is the ground from which the entire argument sprung.

However, lets look at the concept of Faith. What exactly is it? Faith is the belief that something exists even though there is no sensible proof of its existing. While it is true that religion does hinge on this idea of faith, it is also true that most of science also relies on faith. As one delves deeper and deeper into the field of physics, it becomes more and more clear that many of the things we know to be sensibly real are in fact mostly in a state flux and change. Philosophers have found for years that there is no way to say, without a doubt, that the reality we see around us is in fact real. Eventually it comes down to Faith in the fact that we exist in a real tangible world for any scientific facts to make sense.

This is not to say that what scientists do are wrong. Scientists practices what I will call "Rational Faith." Rational Faith is believing in something that you cannot prove, but cannot be disproved. For example, believing that the result of 1+ 1 is 2, and that numbers hold real value and meaning in the world is a exercise of rational faith. I have faith that the entities of 1 and 2 have value, and it is impossible to prove that 1 and 2 are just contrived concepts or that humanity is wrong about the values of 1 and 2. We cannot come to those conclusions with the knowledge that we have, and therefore I have faith that is true.

The 2nd type of faith is Blind Faith. Blind Faith is believing that something is true REGARDLESS of the evidence presented to you. This would be the person who denies what they see with their own eyes, because they believe something else. If you see a tree, but say that it is a duck then you are exerting blind faith. Yes, the tree is a tree because we as a culture have named it such, but it is most certainly not a duck. If you have Faith that it is a duck, you are a fool.

This is where the concept of Creationism versus Evolution come into play. The Creationists are exerting a blind faith. Science has presented a body of evidence in which they have Rational Faith, that proves that humans have evolved on this planet over millions of years into the creatures that we are. Creationists take that evidence and refuse to believe it without giving an rational argument to the contrary. They claim that they have Faith that the book they believe in is entirely true. This faith ignores evidence in favor of a previously held belief, this is blind faith, and this is foolish.

As for the Athiests: Their argument hinges on the fact that "there is no God, and therefore the only possible rationale for our existance is evolution." They in fact have no faith at all, but have just made an arrogant assertion that what they hold to be true is in fact true. They have abandoned the concept of faith, and choose to take things directly as they see them. They look at the world and say "that is a tree," "that is a book," "this is a computer," but don't question what is behind this reality at all. This is equally as foolish as the Christian that claims that "because I have faith in God, he exists." Both sides are completely blind to the reality of situation, and have ignored over 3000 + years of Philosophy in both camps.

So the question as to who is right in this argument seems to be that both sides are just arrogant egomaniacs that love the sound of their own voice. There is no philosophical discussion taking place here, and any scientific method is outright thrown out the window. The religious aren't seeking to find answers about what they believe, but blindly believing what they're told. The atheists are questioning reality without a higher being, but refusing to believe that there is anything below their face value reality. Two sides arguing irrational points will never come to consensus, so the argument continues.

Welcome to the Pondertorium!

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 00:44:07 +0000

I thought I should give everyone a background on what the Pondertorium is, and who the crazy kid is who runs the place is. I have a feeling that people will eventually get to know me (the one they call The Baylow) after some time of reading my fine blog, but we're not at that point yet, and I'd say we have a ways to go.

The name Pondertorium comes from a ancient greek play called "The Clouds." The play was an attempt to mock the sophists of that time, and to include the very well known philosopher Socrates into that mix. In the play, Socrates is the headmaster of a school of "learning" called the Pondertorium. The place was actually just a hive of some of the stupidest thought you could ever imagine. It was a place where people's heads were so far up in the clouds that they couldn't see their feet. Of course, by the end of the play (SPOILER ALERT) the place was burned to the ground.

So too, I hope that this Pondertorium will be your source for heady psudo-knowledge about all sorts of topics. Your dear writer holds his interests in Video Games, Philosophy, International, and Domestic Politics so you can expect to see topics along those lines coming from me. However, I plan to invite some close friends to join the mix so you should be seeing even more from them.

"Take me where you will. I seek a throng, so that I may the better annihilate you."